I have talked about direct mail for a long time now. One thing that is so important to understand about direct mail is that you have to set up campaigns to be successful with this strategy. Sending out a whole bunch of letters once or even a couple of times is just a waste of money. Direct mail is a long term strategy. Before we move on to creating absentee owner letters that actually get a great response, I want to spend a little time going over the basics of direct mail.

What Exactly is a Direct Mail Campaign?

A direct mail campaign is an ongoing process of sending mail pieces to your target audience. It is not a one or two time event where you mail to your prospects. My rule is that I mail everyone, every month so long as the house is still available. This is what I know for sure: folks that are successful with direct mail marketing follow some tried and true principles and that's what this article is about.

Surprising Statistics

Here are some statistics for you that you just might find surprising. About 81% of your deals (not calls) will come at or beyond your 5th mailing. However, around 90% of the people will stop mailing on or before the 3rd mailing.

Stop and think about that for a minute. If you just mail consistently, you will be ahead of 90% of your competition. Just stay in the game. You want to be the last man standing when it comes to follow-up.

Here's one more statistic for you. Something like 80% of all your deals will come from follow-up. So what is follow up? It's your ongoing direct mail campaigns, a call after someone has said no to your offer, or a second call just to follow up. It's any continued contact you have with the seller. A thank you note is a follow-up.

What are the 7 steps that make up a direct mail campaign?

The mail piece: Decide on the type of mail piece (letter or postcard).

The message: Create a compelling message for your mail piece.

The design: Choose the design your actual mail piece.

The list: Put together a list of prospects. Know who your target audience is.

Putting the mailing together: Do it In-house or outsource it?

The actual mailing: Drop it in the mailbox.

Follow-up: Rinse and repeat every month.

Congratulations. You have just set up a direct mail campaign.

One more bit of advice to help you out. You can keep your lists organized in a spreadsheet, however you need to get a database or contact management system to manage your leads right from the beginning. You won’t be able to manage this process unless you automate it.

Should You Send Postcards or Letters?

My answer is it depends. I generally use postcards for most of the niches except probates. (You can find out more about marketing to probates by clicking here.)

I've had good luck with postcards. However, you might need to do a split test to find out what's working in your area. When I first started out I used letters for everything with good results. Then when I moved to postcards, I also had good luck. One main reason to choose postcards is they are so much more economical than letters especially if you are outsourcing your mailing.

Figure out what's working in your area by testing. One last thing. Be sure your picture is on your postcards.

What are the Components of a Good Direct Mail Letter?

There are several key pieces to a good direct mail letter.

Your letter should be personalized. Wouldn’t you rather get a letter that says “Dear Dan” than one that says, “Hello homeowner or dear executor” or something like that? Your letter should also have the subject property address on it.

Headlines and sub-headlines are one of the most important aspects of the letter. You have to get the person’s attention right away. This is especially important with postcards where you have very limited space.

Use bullet points whenever possible to highlight your message. People have notoriously short attention spans. Using sub-titles and bullet points makes it easy for the reader to scan your letter quickly. If they can easily identify with your message or your offer, they will be more likely to ready the whole letter.

The letter isn’t about you, so don’t spend a lot of time talking about you or your company. You should say something like, “I will buy your house AS IS, can pay cash and close quickly”. Those are things about you (or your company), but they are also benefits to the seller.

List some problems the seller might be having such as:

You tried to sell your property before you moved but didn’t get an offer.

You inherited an unwanted property.

You had tenants in the property and wanted to hold onto it for income. But, it turned out to be more trouble than you thought.

6. Offer some solutions or ways that you can help them now.

You won’t have to worry about making any of the needed repairs.

You’ll stop sinking money into a property you don’t even want.

We will take care of all of the paperwork for you.

People are motivated by two things; pain and pleasure. Figure out how to make their pain go away.

Here are Some Previous Posts on Direct Mail you Might also Enjoy.

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*This article which was originally published in March of 2013 has been revised and updated.

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10 thoughts on “Creating Absentee Owner Letters That Get a Great Response”

In this post you talk about setting up a direct mail system in which you can automate for efficiency. I typically use just an excel spreadsheet, but I haven’t been able to find a good direct mail provider that can mail merge. Could you give me a few suggestions on vendors that may be helpful? I’ve tried Click2Mail, but doing the setup is just awful. If you have a list or can give me a few that you’ve tried that would be great.

I used Sales Team Live for a while, but they are expensive. PostcardMania is another choice That is who I am using now. You buy your postcards in bulk, and then they personalize them and hold them until you are ready to mail. You pay for the postage when you mail. There is some upfront cost for the postcards. After that, you just send them an email when you are ready to mail. They can also update your list as needed. I use these for absentee owners.

Get a plain postcard that doesn’t look too “slick”. They will help you design one. There is a video interview I did with the owner Joy Gendusa. Look for it under the video tab then Amazing Entrepreneurs. There is a freebie on that post that will send you to an opt in. Once you do that you can get her ebook free which normally costs $20. It is a great marketing book.

You just can’t manage this process with a spreadsheet. It’s impossible. I use an ACT database. You can get it online or at Office Depot. I had to have my computer guy put my list (from Excel) into the database for me. Once your contacts are in there, you can add notes when you talk to them etc. It gives you a way to keep track of everyone.

Once you have all your contacts in there, you can also do a mail merge and merge up letters, print them yourself and mail them. I use this for my probates. I did a couple of posts on setting up and using an Act Database on Bigger Pockets. You can find the linking posts here. Just do a search.

Casey, the thing is that it is all hard to learn. But you will look back in a year or two and just go, “wow”; I know so much more than I did a couple of years ago. I am still learning just about every day and some of it is still hard.

I’m a new discoverer to your blog and really appreciate the content. I have been doing a direct mail campaign over the last 4.5. months with great response but very little conversion thus far. My question is within your campaigns are you marketing your brand as an individual wanting to buy, a local investment company or both?

I think you need to do both. My company name is on my letters etc. I have pulled down my website to do some rebranding. I have also bought my name in a domain. I am thinking long term what I want to do with that.

I have two things going on; one is my investing business which is one thing and is totally different from my current blog. The second is my blog.

Obviously with my “house buying company” I don’t want those folks to cross over to my blog where I teach others how to get great deals. My new company site will have a blog component in it to encourage folks to come back to it for information, but it won’t be as comprehensive as this blog. It’s simply a matter of time. One site is for motivated sellers and this blog is for investors.

Going back to my “name domain”, I see very successful marketers doing this. That will be my personal branding site, and my blog and other product sites will all be linked to this personal site.

I am moving into creating information products for folks because I get so many requests.

I hope this helps. And, just keep mailing. Most deals will come at the 5th mailing and beyond.

Sharon your blog is incredible. I have seen you on flipthiswholesaler.net as well as on various youtube video interviews and am very impressed with the wealth of knowledge you have imparted to all of us for free on a recurring basis. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have learned tons from you and will continue to be a subscribed member of your site for as long as you have it. Again i say thank you and God Bless.

Hi Ashley – Start here and read, read, read. You can search by topic. You need to get a good basic foundation. I have also written about 150 articles for BiggerPockets.com. That’s another great resource.